Bidders from across the globe have shown interest in buying the Honda F1 team. The owner of Kingfisher and Team Force India F1, Vijay Mallya has been keen to purchase the Honda F1 Team. David Richards and the one of the world’s richest men, Carlos Slim, are also involved in this race to buy Honda.
Rumours that the Mexican business tycoon, Carlos Slim, the owner of TelMex could  have just bought the team, along with Adrian Campos, the team chief of GP2 and A1GP. Slim has been in talks in with the team since 23rd December, since the day his helicopter was seen hovering over the Brackley factory. Slim is already involved in various motorsports and is keen to enter the world’s most expensive sport as well. It is believed that Slim has finalized the British driver Jenson Button, and the Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello could be replaced by an another Brazilian: Bruno Senna. Senna, 25, is the nephew of Ayrton Senna, who had lost his life on 1st May, 1994 in the San Marino Grand Prix. Senna is expected to make his F1 debut this year after finishing second in GP2 championship last year.
Mallya’s interest in the Japanese team seems obvious as he will be interested in the technology and the facilities at the Brackley factory. David Richards along with his Prodrive team could be back at Brackley. David Richards was the chief of Honda F1 when it was known as BAR-Honda from the year 2000 to 2005, when Honda returned to the Formula One grid by providing BAR (British American Racing) with engines. It was September 2005 when the Honda team bought 55% of BAR’s stake in the team and became an independent team.
Prodrive, was scheduled to enter Formula 1 as the twelfth constructor in 2008. Initially the team had planned to use customer chassis from the Mclaren Mercedes F1 team. But since there were issues with the FIA regulations and independent teams were not happy with the idea of customer chassis, Prodrive decided to quit Formula 1.
Honda began supplying engines to the Jordan team in 2001, but backed out in 2002 to concentrate more on BAR Honda. Later in, 2006, Honda supplied engines to a Japanese independent team called Super Aguri. In 2008, the team fell short of funds and hence decided to quit F1, leaving just 20 drivers on the starting grid.
